286 DECEMBER 



pheasants and grey-hens are notoriously bad nurses. 

 Flush the grey-hen in July, and she will rise on her 

 strong pinions and steam away over hill and glen, 

 apparently without a thought of the helpless brood 

 crouching in the heather. Did anybody ever see 

 either hen-pheasant or grey-hen resort to that fond 

 and common device of monogamous mother-birds 

 shamming cripples to divert attention from their 

 young ? I never did, and I question whether poly- 

 gamous birds ever do so. 



But in one respect the grey-hen differs very re- 

 markably from the hen-pheasant. The cock-pheasant 

 struts about in the nesting season followed by his 

 dingy docile wives, and suffers no rival to approach 

 his harem without doing battle. But blackcock are 

 philosophic husbands ; in the love-season they spend 

 most of the day together, devoting an hour morning 

 and evening to receive visits from the hens, which 

 often have to fly miles from their intended nesting 

 place to the flirting ground. During the hours not 

 occupied in love-making, the cocks spend their time 

 at the club, as it were some sunny knoll, birchen 

 grove, or meadow by the river, where a wary ob- 

 server may watch them, drumming and strutting 

 like turkey-cocks, dancing, and performing the most 



